Much Better Adventures

A London-founded online marketplace for adventure and active holidays, such as skiing, cycling and hiking trips, run by independent local operators.

About Much Better Adventures

Much Better Adventures is an online marketplace for adventure and activity holidays. Customers can discover, compare, book and review trips with independent local hosts, guides and small tour operators, including skiing, cycling, hiking and other outdoor trips. A founders' account from 2015 said that customers fill in one form with their requirements and local businesses reply with tailor-made offers. The company says it hand-picks operators who are locally owned and independent. It sits at the point where travel meets sport, so we include it here as an active-travel company rather than a pure sports business.

It was founded in London in 2012 by Alex Narracott, Sam Bruce and Guy Bowden. According to a TechCrunch report, they began by listing independent chalets run by skiers in Europe, working from a rented chalet in the French Alps, and later added cycling holidays. Their stated reason was that adventure travel is hard to find online and local operators struggle to get seen, so the platform matches customers to operators by their needs and interests. A separate profile says it also had a social arm that gives a share of each booking to grassroots conservation and sustainable development projects.

The company was founded and based in London. The TechCrunch report said it had grown to 12 people by early 2016, and a 2015 profile mentioned plans to grow the team and add destinations and kinds of adventure holiday, including expansion to the United States and Australia. These sources are about ten years old, so we do not know the current team size or office. We also could not confirm whether it is still headquartered in London, so check before relying on this.

The pages we found say little about culture. The founders' own story is of friends who loved skiing and the outdoors and built a business around it, and the company earned recognition as a finalist for the People's Champion at the Startups Awards. We found no first-party statement on values and no staff comments, so we do not describe them.

Jobs in an adventure-travel marketplace include website and app developers, designers, product managers, customer service and booking specialists who help people choose trips, partnership staff who recruit and look after local operators, marketing and content writers who share the stories of the places, and finance and operations teams. If you love the outdoors, travel or building businesses online, it is a good example of how technology can connect small local businesses with customers.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Compare and book active trips run by independent local operators.', 'title': 'Adventure holiday marketplace'}
• {'desc': 'Customers send one request and local businesses reply with offers.', 'title': 'Tailor-made enquiries'}
• {'desc': 'A share of bookings funds grassroots conservation projects, per a 2015 profile.', 'title': 'Conservation giving'}

Key facts

• Founded in London in 2012 by Alex Narracott, Sam Bruce and Guy Bowden
• Began with skier-run chalets in Europe and added cycling holidays (2016 report)
• Team of 12 in early 2016 (dated)
• Finalist for People's Champion at the Startups Awards

Website: www.muchbetteradventures.com